After three fairly tough trainer workouts in a row (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) followed immediately by a spirited 100 kilometer ride on Sunday, my legs were not exactly fresh yesterday morning. But it was another beautiful day, and I had no choice but to get out and ride again!

Over the weekend I spent some time playing around with Strava’s fairly new route planner, and came up with a nice little 100 kilometer ride with a little over 2,000 feet of elevation (which I creatively named “Kelly Park -> Astalula -> Sugarloaf -> Minneola -> South Lake Trail -> West Orange Trail”).

From yesterday’s 100 kilometer ride. Enjoying the view on Scrub Jay Lane in Minneola, Florida. I shouldn’t need the cue sheet taped to my top tube, but I do.

Strava’s route planner is a pretty cool tool, but it’s far from perfect. I like that you can print out a cue sheet (a necessity for my dumb, perpetually lost ass), but the cue sheet missed streets and turns that were clearly shown on the map, and was ambiguous at certain intersections. A few examples:

Sugarloaf Mountain Road dead-ends at CR 561A; you can turn left or right at CR 561A, but Strava’s cue sheet simply says, “Proceed onto CR 561A”. Great, BUT WHICH WAY?!

The next cue indicates “Left onto Grassy Lake Road”. What?! Grassy Lake Road does not intersect with CR 561A at any point!

The cue sheet completely missed two streets required to get to Grassy Lake Road from CR 561A: “Left on Scrub Jay Lane” and “Left on Citrus Grove Road”. Only then can you turn onto Grassy Lake Road (and the turn on to Grassy Lake Road is actually Right, not Left). Not a single mention of Scrub Jay or Citrus Grove on the cue sheet, even though they are clearly shown on Strava’s map.

Thankfully I reviewed the cue sheet and spotted these errors before I left the house. I manually annotated the cue sheet, but it’s a little disappointing that there were so many errors. I think I’m going to stick with MapMyRide for now.

Okay, so the cue sheet errors are bad enough, but there are also mapping errors and street naming conventions that are utterly baffling. Examples? Sure.

Check out this intersection:

Here’s the street sign:

So much misinformation in so little space.

Grassy Lake Road is to the left (off camera), and the sign clearly indicates Grassy Lake Road continues, straight, into the subdivision pictured at right. But no, that’s actually Jack Pine. The sign also shows that Fosgate runs in both directions (east and west). Again, no: Fosgate actually runs east, while Grassy Lake runs west from this point. The sign gives no indication of this and, in fact, indicates that Grassy Lake continues south.

Okay, how about this one: Turkey Farm Road becomes N. Hancock Road and then Turns back into Turkey Farm Road, and this all happens on a short, straight section of road:

Really? REALLY?!

Adding to the confusion, There is another Hancock Road south of this location (which does not connect in any way with this Hancock Road), and the other Hancock Road is also called “Old Highway 50 West” AND “Old County Road 50”.

In fact, many of the major roads around here have two or even three names. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

To the never-ending amusement of my friends, I am extremely directionally challenged. Seriously, I’m exceptionally bad. I really make an effort, but I have some sort of mental block that prevents me from finding my way around like normal people. Crap like the above just makes my head want to explode.

John Stone Fitness Comments

When I was building homes in your area ten years ago, there was no rule or requirement on street names. The developer(s) chose names, we (the engineers) showed that on our plan sets. The city council would approve the plans, and therefore, the street names (or renamed segments). I never once, in building 4,400 homes in FL, had a city council say “no” to naming/re-naming streets. Later, the the surveyors would change the street names when the final plat was filed with the city/county, and that made it legal.

Personally, I always thought emergency services should have the final say in street naming. Imagine being a new ambulance driver on an emergency call? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, if it hasn’t already.

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